Chapter 19 #2
She betrayed me, but she’s alive.
I storm into my office at the end of the penthouse hallway. Outside, city lights shimmer stories below, indifferent.
Ivan is standing by the comms desk. The screen is dark.
The call with the Venezuelan Cartel ended moments before the Sentinel's distress beacon lit up the wall.
The second the alarm triggered, I ordered Ivan to completely burn Helena's biometric clearance from the mainframe. If the vehicle was compromised, her system access had to be severed instantly.
Ivan looks up.
"Lev?" I ask, walking to the liquor cabinet.
"The pickup team was fast," he replies. "They had Lev in the van before the cops closed the bridge. He's already on the table at the clinic, but it's bad, Konstantin. He lost four pints of blood. They're sewing up the artery now, but he might not wake up."
I grip the bottle of vodka. The glass is cold against my battered hand.
"He will wake up," I say. "He has to."
I pour a glass, but I don't drink it.
"She told them," I say.
Ivan doesn't look at me. He’s typing, his movements jerky. "She was scared, Boss. She isn’t a soldier. Put a gun to a civilian's head, and they’ll sell you out. It's instinct. Survival."
"It’s betrayal," I snap, hurling the glass.
It shatters against the wall. The smell of alcohol fills the air.
"I trusted her." I pace. The ring in my pocket feels like a lead against my thigh, burning through the fabric. "I put her in that car because I thought she was a Queen. I thought she could handle the weight. I didn't realize I was sending a civilian to the slaughter."
"She’s a shipping CEO, Konstantin," Ivan says quietly. "Not a mobster. You can’t expect her to die for a war she didn't start."
I stop. My eyes feel dry.
I walk to the safe in the wall. Punch in the code—my mother's birthday. The steel door swings open.
Inside sits the tablet.
The black slate of glass and metal. It looks so innocuous. Just a piece of technology. But it controls the destiny of the Bratva.
It contains the return route from Venezuela. It holds the fate of the ship.
The codes on this drive unlock the Lady Anastasia. They release enough firepower to wipe out the Italians. Missiles. Automatic rifles. Explosives.
It’s the only reason I’m still breathing. The only reason I wake up in the morning.
I stare at the device.
If I give this to Moretti, he wins. He gets the weapons. The power. He becomes King.
And my family... they die in vain. Again.
I can’t let him have it. The debt is too high.
"No," I whisper.
"Boss?"
"We keep the tablet," I say. I pick it up, brandishing it. "We don't negotiate. If I give Moretti this drive, he kills us all anyway. He takes the weapons and razes the city. He’ll kill me. He’ll kill you. And he’ll kill her once she’s useless."
"And Helena?" Ivan asks.
There’s a look in his eyes I've never seen before. "You're leaving her to a man like Moretti because she broke? She’s not one of us, Konstantin. She was never meant to hold a line."
I close the safe and spin the lock.
"She made her choice," I say, my heart turning to stone. "She chose to speak. Now she lives with the consequences."
I turn my back. "Prepare the men," I command. "We hit the Foundry at midnight, but we don't bring the tablet. We go in shooting. We breach the roof. Breach the doors. If she survives the crossfire, good. If not..."
I let the sentence hang.
Ivan looks at me with horror. "You’re leaving her to die."
"I’m choosing the Bratva," I correct him. "I’m choosing the survival of this organization over a woman who betrayed us."
"I know what that tablet is worth," he says, stepping toward me.
"And I know she’s a Blackwood. But you're the most brutal enforcer I've ever served, Konstantin.
You always find a way to win. If you let her die tonight because you're too proud to find a third option, you'll spend the rest of your life hating the man in the mirror.
You won't be a King. You'll be a ghost in an empty house. "
He pauses, his gaze heavy with a truth I don't want to hear. "She’s your wife, Konstantin."
"She’s a liability," I snarl. "Get out. Prep the team."
Ivan stares at me for a long moment, then he shakes his head and turns to leave.
The door clicks shut.
I’m alone.
I’ve won. I kept the asset. I’ve protected the business. All acts of a man fit to be the next Pakhan.
So why does it feel like I died?
Breathing comes in ragged pulls. My hand throbs, and my heart aches.
I need to change. To rid myself of the day’s carnage. I walk down the hallway to the master bedroom, footsteps echoing on the marble. A ghost haunting my own life.
I push open the doors.
The room is dark and cold. The curtains are still drawn from this morning.
My eyes land on the bed.
The pillows are still indented from where we slept. The sheets are rumpled. A chaotic map of what we shared before the sun rose, and I sent her into the lion's den.
I walk to her side of the bed and sit on the edge.
I can still smell her—warm skin, sweat, and that dark feminine scent that belongs only to her. It tightens around my throat like a noose.
Refusing to look at the bed, I avert my gaze to the floor. The velvet dress she wore to the dinner lies in a heap where I threw it. The emerald earrings I removed from her ears sit on the nightstand.
I close my eyes.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
I told myself I was protecting her. That the Sentinel was safe. That sending her to the Depot was a strategic masterstroke.
But it was a lie.
I put her in that car because I needed a distraction. I was so sure Moretti would target the warehouse that I didn't see the obvious move.
Arrogance made me weak. Foolish. I played a game of chess while Moretti wielded a sledgehammer.
I used her as a pawn, and I lost her.
While they were tearing her apart, she didn't betray me. She saved herself because I wasn't there to do it.
If I leave her there... if I storm the Foundry without the trade... Moretti will kill her before I even breach the door. He'll cut her throat while I fight his guards.
In the end, I’ll be just like her father. The man who traded her soul for a shipping container.
The Bratva Elders are waiting. They want a leader made of ice. They expect me to let my wife burn to keep the throne. To let her die for the sake of the blood debt.
If I give Moretti the tablet, it’s treason. I'll be a dead man before I touch the crown.
Facing my mistakes, I look at the empty bed.
I remember the day she signed the marriage papers. It was a transaction. Her hand shook so hard when she held the pen that the ink bled on the page. Her signature marked my victory.
I thought I’d captured a pawn—the final asset to destroy her father. I didn't know I was signing my own surrender. I didn't know a day would come when the thought of that signature fading would bring me to my knees.
The next twenty years of my life flash before my eyes. Winning the war. Ruling the city. Twenty years of never seeing her in this bed again, sleeping alone, with nothing but my crown and my ghosts.
The vengeance meant everything to me for years. It was the fire that kept me warm.
But looking at the empty pillow, I realize vengeance is cold.
I can burn the Italians. I can kill every man in this city. But if I come back to this room and she isn’t here., I’m not a King. I'm a man in a graveyard.
The stark truth breaks me.
"Fuck," I whisper.
I stand and walk back into the office.
Ivan is checking his pistol. "Team is ready, Boss. We have twenty men. Snipers moving to—"
"Stand them down.”
Ivan freezes. "What?"
"Stand them down," I repeat. "No team. No assault. No snipers."
I walk past him to the safe and spin the dial. I pull the heavy steel door open and grab the tablet.
The device weighs heavily in my hand. It’s worth billions. The price of an empire. The death of my enemies.
"Open the casing," I shove the device against his chest.
He fumbles with it, looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. "Konstantin?"
"Put a tracker inside the hardware," I say. "The smallest one we have. Something scanners won't pick up."
Ivan takes the tablet, eyes widening. He pulls a micro-screwdriver set from his tactical vest.
"You're going to give it to them," he says. "You're trading the weapons."
"I’m going to lend it to them," I correct him. "Think about it, Ivan. The Lady Anastasia is still days away. Even if Moretti has this tablet, he can't use it yet. It’s useless until the ship is loaded and on the return vector."
I watch as Ivan unscrews the back panel. He places a microchip no larger than a rice grain near the battery.
"He thinks he’s won the war," I say. "But he’s only bought a paperweight. For the next five days, that tablet is nothing but glass."
"Five days," Ivan murmurs, snapping it shut. "That gives us a window."
"It gives me time," I say. "I trade the tablet to get Helena back tonight. Get her to safety. Then... I hunt them down, and I take it back before the ship turns around."
He hands it back. "It's done. The tracker is active."
I slide the tablet into my pocket. It rests against my ribs, right over my heart.
"I'm going alone," I say.
"Konstantin," He grabs my arm. "That is a suicide mission. Moretti is a liar. He’ll have men there. If you walk in there with that tablet, he’ll take it and put a bullet in your head."
"Maybe," I say, checking the chamber of my gun. One in the pipe. Fifteen in the magazine. "But if I go in with a team, he kills her first."
I holster the weapon.
"I need her alive, Ivan," I say, looking him in the eye. "The business, we can rebuild. The shipment, we can steal back. But her? There’s no replacement."
I walk toward the elevator.
"If I'm not back in time," I say, "tell the Council the war has begun."
"Konstantin!" Ivan yells after me.
The elevator doors slide shut, cutting off his voice. Silence settles in as the numbers begin their slow descent.
It’s a trap. Moretti knows it. I know it.
For the first time in my life, strategy doesn’t matter. Neither do the odds.
The garage waits below. My Ferrari sits alone under the lights.
I slide behind the wheel and turn the key.
The engine wakes with a low, violent roar.
Midnight is coming.
So am I.